Bethel under National Socialism

In addition to historical research, the commemoration of the victims of National Socialism also plays an important role in Bethel's culture of remembrance.

A start was made in 1989 with the memorial plaque on the Zion Church in Bethel and the memorial cross on the church in Eckardtsheim with the inscription: "Remember those who lived among us and, just because they were different, were humiliated, murdered and buried between 1933 and 1945. Lord God, have mercy".

Another place of remembrance is the stele on Bethelplatz in memory of the people who were forcibly sterilised in Bethel. Designed by the Bielefeld artist Gabriele Undine Meyer, the stele was inaugurated with a ceremony in June 2000.

This was followed a few years later by a memorial stone for the people who had to perform forced labour in Bethel between 1941 and 1945. The stone was inaugurated in August 2005 and is located in front of the place of thanksgiving. On behalf of the forced labourers deployed, former victims from Belarus were financially supported with a monthly sum of money over a period of two years from 2000.

In memory of the victims of the "special action" against Jewish institutional patients as part of "Aktion T4", so called "stumbling stones" were laid in Bethel in 2013 and 2019 by school classes from the grammar school. A total of seven "stumbling stones" at various locations in Bethel now commemorate the fate of Jewish patients and patients of Jewish origin. In the 1990s, the "Reinhard-Beyth-Haus" and "Hans-Lachmann-Haus" nursing homes and the "Grete-Reich-Weg" were named after Jewish people as a memorial.